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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25627498">dreaming unexplained</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/textbookchoices/pseuds/textbookchoices'>textbookchoices</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Marvel Cinematic Universe</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Age Difference, Angst, Blood, Body Horror, Case Fic, Crying, Dream Sex, Frottage, Grief/Mourning, Horror, Intercrural Sex, M/M, Magic, Major Character Injury, Masturbation, Not A Fix-It, Pining, Post-Canon, Rescue, Trust Issues, Unreliable Narrator</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 09:49:37</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,175</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25627498</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/textbookchoices/pseuds/textbookchoices</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>He doesn’t go back to class; he ducks into the boy’s bathroom instead and fumbles with his phone, pushing buttons with sweat-slick fingers. Mr. Stark. One ring, two, three. No answer.</p><p>Desperate, Peter says, “Please. I don’t know what’s going on. I think—they think I—Mr. Stark, <i>please</i> answer the phone. I need help.”</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Peter Parker/Tony Stark</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>66</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Battleship 2020, Battleship 2020 - Red Team</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>dreaming unexplained</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/miri_cleo/gifts">Miri Cleo (miri_cleo)</a>.</li>



    </ul></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Hey,” Ned says, bumping into Peter near their lockers. Peter blinks, and then shakes his head. He’d been staring off into space instead of pressing the combination into his locker. “Where were you last night?”</p><p>“Where—?”</p><p>Ned frowns and says, “Dude, we had plans. Remember?”</p><p>Peter bangs his head against the locker. “Ned, I’m so sorry.” He <em>does</em> remember: they were going to hang out. The plan was to build a new Lego set Ned’s grandpa had sent him for his birthday, watch the premiere of <em>Batgirl</em> and chill out with too much popcorn, soda and skittles, which is pretty much their favorite way to spend their time.</p><p>Ned still looks a little hurt, and Peter tells him, “I was really tired yesterday, I don’t know. I barely even remember getting home. I just crashed and slept for like… hours.”</p><p>“You think it has to do with—you know?”</p><p>“Maybe,” Peter shrugs. He loves being Spider-Man, sure, but swinging around the city taking out bad guys every day… well, it can get draining. But it isn’t like it’s that big of a deal that he’d just taken a nap, right? He should have remembered to call Ned and tell him he wasn’t coming over though.</p><p>He closes his locker, math textbook under his arm, and he and Ned head to chemistry.</p><p>The thing is, when they get there, Flash is already settled in at his desk, a cheery grin on his face as he’s playing some sort of video for a crowd of students around him. He looks up when Peter and Ned walk in and his face gets even haughtier than it already was as he yells, “Hey, Penis, check it out, I got Spider-Man on video saving a kid yesterday. He talked to me and everything.”</p><p>Peter’s brow furrows and he looks at the video playing on Flash’s phone. It’s—definitely Peter, in the suit, pulling a pair of twin girls and their parents out of an upturned car that’s leaking fuel. In the video, he gets the kids to safety and then yanks Flash—who's narrating the entire thing—away from the car explosion. It’s even Peter's voice saying, “You really should keep a safe distance away from exploding stuff, you know? Vlogs aren’t worth dying for.”</p><p>Back in the present, Flash smirks and says, “I was never in any danger with Spider-Man right there. He’s a friend, you know?”</p><p>Peter nearly snorts, except that a loud thump comes from behind him, and he turns to see Ned, backpack on their station, staring at the desk. Oh, crap. He thinks he lied about—but Peter really didn’t go save anybody yesterday, not unless he was, like, sleep swinging? Is that even a thing he can do? He’ll have to ask Mr. Stark.</p><p>Before he can explain, Mrs. Schultz comes in and everyone sinks into their seats.</p><p>He writes it on a piece of notebook paper—<em>not lying, didn’t go on patrol ystrday, wtf?</em>—and pushes it towards Ned when Mrs. Schultz turns around to write something on the whiteboard. Ned glances at him, twists his mouth, and pushes the note back at Peter without reading it.</p><p>Peter feels something stick in his throat.</p><p>Ned is mad at him, then.</p><p>He’s clicking his pen against his textbook ten minutes later, trying to think of a way to convince Ned that he isn’t lying, when class is suddenly interrupted by a loud, piercing absolutely terrified scream coming from down the hallway. Peter’s not the only one who jumps up to rush into the hallway, his head having snapped up at the noise.</p><p>Mrs. Schultz tells them all to stay in their seats, but nobody listens and Peter follows the crowd to see what’s going on. Kids are pushing each other, filling the hallway. The crowd spills into the gymnasium, and there’s a circle of students and teachers at the entrance to the girl’s locker room down near the end of it. Peter shoves his way through, and then stops at the sight of a girl being led out of the locker room, shaking and sobbing into her hands, by one of the gym coaches. Another teacher is standing at the locker room entrance, yelling at students to stay back and get back to class.</p><p>But Peter can hear the conversation that’s happening just inside the doors, and he feels a sick, horrified weight fill his stomach when he realizes what’s going on. It hardly takes another ten minutes and two failed attempts to get the students back into their classes before the police arrive.</p><p>MJ sidles up next to him at some point, nodding toward the locker room, and says, “There really a dead girl in there?”</p><p>Peter swallows, looking at her. “Yeah,” he says, and then hears a cop say, voice muffled, <em>“Stuffed into a shower stall, amazing.”</em></p><p>
  <em>“You think she was dumped here?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“More than likely. There’s not enough blood. What I can tell you is that some fucking monster broke her neck.”</em>
</p><p>Peter turns away. He barely hears the following, <em>“Hey, there’s a partial footprint in the blood there. Get that, will you? Could be the killer’s.”</em></p><p>MJ follows him out, and they run into Ned in the hallway.</p><p>Ned crosses his arms, like he’s about to turn away, and Peter says, “Ned, please, I swear I wasn’t lying!”</p><p>Ned pauses, and then sighs and says, “It’s fine if you don’t want to hang out. You can just tell me. I’m not a kid or whatever. It’s not going to hurt my feelings.”</p><p>Peter’s eyes widen. “No! I did want to hang out, I swear I just went to bed! I mean, okay, I can’t explain the video on Flash’s phone—”</p><p>“That’s some pretty shitty lying there, Peter,” MJ says, her face morphing from the tentatively interested in murder expression she’d had to something more akin to seriously disappointed. “I saw that video. That was definitely filmed yesterday.”</p><p>Peter slumps, because okay, sure, that’s true, but—but he isn’t lying. He doesn’t remember going on patrol yesterday at all, and MJ and Ned are walking away, and that’s—</p><p>He sits down at his and Ned’s station back in class, empty now of all the other students and the teacher. He pulls out his phone and searches for Mr. Stark’s contact—<em>I Am Iron Man</em>—and pushes ‘call’. It rings once, twice, three times, and goes to voice mail.</p><p>“This is Tony, don’t leave a message unless it’s actually important.”</p><p>Peter smiles at the sound of Mr. Stark’s voice, and then frowns and says, “Hey, um, Mr. Stark? I was wondering if you thought it was possible I could, I don’t know, go on patrol while I’m sleeping? Like sleep patrolling? You know how people can sleepwalk and like, make dinner without even waking up? Um, call me back when you get a chance. Thanks. Uh, bye.”</p><p>He stares at his phone for a minute, and then thinks—why did Peter have to call him and leave a <em>voicemail</em>? He should have just texted him, now Mr. Stark’s going to think Peter’s annoying. Great.</p><p>He rests his head on the chemistry station with a solid <em>thunk</em>.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>School is basically a wash for the rest of the day; all anyone wants to talk about is the dead girl that was found in the locker rooms. Peter hadn’t known her; she was new to the school.</p><p>He somehow gets through the day on Ned and MJ’s bad side, but at the end of his last class, they both corner and grab him which can only be a good thing. He thinks they’re going to let him explain the situation even though Mr. Stark hasn’t called him back yet so he doesn’t really <em>have</em> an explanation that makes sense yet. But it doesn’t matter. Instead of asking him what was going on with that, MJ narrows her eyes at him and shoves him into a computer chair in the library and says, “What the hell is that, Peter?”</p><p>Peter blinks at the computer screen, then glances over to Ned.</p><p>“I was trying to hack into the video files. You know, to see if I could see who might have left the girl in the locker room? All I found was that.”</p><p>Peter turns back to the computer screen.</p><p>The security camera footage for last night, 7PM – 8PM is missing, but it isn’t empty, it’s—it’s a line of code, and it ends with a small, black symbol: a spider.</p><p>“That’s—” He swallows. He looks at his friends. “I have no idea. I don’t know what—”</p><p>He breathes out through his nose, trying to keep the panic from making him suddenly puke.</p><p>Quietly, he whispers towards MJ and Ned, “Do you think someone knows I’m Spider-Man? That this is—a threat? That they killed that girl as a <em>message</em>?”</p><p>Ned shrugs, and his face breaks into confusion.</p><p>MJ keeps her stern expression, her eyes narrowed. “It possible,” she says, finally, and Peter feels relief flood through him.</p><p>Wait—<em>relief? </em>God, he shouldn’t be relieved; a girl was murdered and it looks like somebody did it to get Peter’s attention, and they <em>knew he was Spider-Man</em>. This was the worst-case scenario, it had to be.</p><p>“I’ll call Mr. Stark,” Peter stammers, fumbling for his phone again.</p><p>He calls—one ring, two, three. No answer.</p><p>He leaves another message, MJ and Ned listening in with doubt written on their faces.</p><p>He stares at his phone and wills Mr. Stark to call him back.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Peter coughs, wheezing and clutching at his side through the material of his suit. He’s bleeding, bruised—it feels like something is choking him and he falls on all fours, trying to catch his breath. He coughs up blood, and finally sits up. The rooftop he’s on is dirty, grimy and made of red brick, but the four guys who he’d been after are webbed up together like a tasty snack for Shelob and the money and drugs they’d been stealing were in a nice pile next to them.</p><p>Peter writes up a note for the cops and uses one of the thieves cellphones to give the cops a location before he jumps off the roof, swinging back to his apartment before he gets in trouble for being late to dinner. He climbs in through the window, carefully making sure nobody was following or watching him, and then switches from his spider suit into a pair of pajamas—soft cotton and pink Hello Kitty pants and a plain white t-shirt, courtesy of Mr. Stark—before walking into the dining room and sitting down at one of the places set out.</p><p>His aunt puts an only-slightly-burned meatloaf on the table with an only-slightly-more-burnt loaf of garlic bread on the side. She makes up the three plates, and then points a fork at Peter and says, “I expect you to eat every bite, Mister, going out there working up a sweat every night. You’re getting too skinny.”</p><p>Peter’s definitely not getting skinny, but he grins and takes a huge bite anyway. He nods questioningly at the third chair at the table, and Aunt May rolls her eyes and says, “Oh, he went out to get something from the corner store. He’ll be back.”</p><p>Peter nods, eating his garlic bread with relish, and then, after stuffing his face full of second helpings, Aunt May laughs and shoos him off to take a shower before doing his homework and going to bed.</p><p>He hears the apartment door open as he’s getting in the shower, followed by the sound of kissing—which, gross, super enhanced hearing really sucks sometimes. He really doesn’t need to hear what those to get up to when he’s not in the room, for his own sanity—and probably theirs if he ever let them in on the fact that he can hear them.</p><p>At least they’re usually only arguing about how they’re going to manage to pay the bills that month, which is… weirdly comforting in its normality, actually.</p><p>Peter shakes his head and gets into the shower, blocking out the noise of his Aunt saying, “Can’t believe you did that, you reckless, selfless—”</p><p>Yeah, he really doesn’t need to hear what comes next.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>He wakes up in the dark. The apartment is quiet, nothing but the hum of the clock in the living room to disturb Peter’s sleep. Of course, it only takes him a second to realize that it wasn’t a noise that woke him up. He grumbles and slips a hand under the comforter, taking his dick into his hand. He’s hard already, wet at the tip—he must have been dreaming about something nice.</p><p>Mr. Stark, probably.</p><p>Peter had tried calling him again after his shower, a little more desperate for Mr. Stark to pick up and talk to him, but there’d still been no answer.</p><p>Mr. Stark probably thinks he’s just an annoying kid.</p><p>Peter bites his lip and starts moving his hand a bit faster, harder.</p><p>He calls to mind one of his favorite memories: Mr. Stark, covered in sweat and grease down in the workshop, wearing nothing but a dirty, sweat-soaked white wifebeater. He’d dropped his wrench and said, “Fuck, it’s getting hot in here,” and grabbed the hem of shirt, dragging it up to wipe at his face, revealing hot, sweaty skin and firm muscles to Peter’s eyes.</p><p>He had scarring, sure, and he wasn’t as toned as people like Thor or Captain America, but Peter could hardly breathe at the sight of him lifting his shirt up like that. He’d nearly come in his pants in the lab, and now it was his number one remembered image on nights like this, when he’s tense and turned on, unable to sleep until he relaxes and winds his body down.</p><p>He especially likes imagining Mr. Stark walking over to him. Running oil-stained fingers up Peter’s chest. Deftly popping the button of his jeans dragging them down his thighs. Getting onto his knees and wrapping his hot, wet mouth and tongue like wet silk around Peter’s cock, sucking him with his eyes open and looking right up at Peter—</p><p>Like clockwork, Peter bites into his wrist and jerks his hips up, up, up through his orgasm, come sliding slippery through his fingers as he fucks into his own fist, thumb rubbing desperately over the head because it feels so good that he can’t stop.</p><p>He reaches over and wipes his hand on the edge of his sheets. He’ll have to do laundry tomorrow.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>The next morning, he’s running around the apartment, grabbing his stuff, hopping in place as he tugs on his sneakers, a piece of toast hanging out of his mouth. Aunt May yawns on her way down the hall, blinking sleepily at him as he balances.</p><p>She stares, and then says, “What’s that on your shoe?”</p><p>Peter blinks back at her, and then turns the shoe in his hand over to look. He frowns; the sole of his sneaker is covered in something wet and dark red, like paint or—</p><p>Or—</p><p>He drops the shoe.</p><p>Swallows.</p><p>“Uh, I stepped in some paint yesterday. Forgot. I’ll grab a different pair. Thanks, Aunt May.”</p><p>She looks at him with a frown, opens her mouth like she’s going to ask a question. He moves quickly.</p><p>He puts a different pair of sneakers on. He throws the pair with the—</p><p>He throws them in the trash bin by his desk and knots the bag, carrying it out with him when he leaves, calling out, “Bye guys!”</p><p>He drops it in the dumpster in the alley by their apartment building, and starts walking to school.</p><p>He breathes.</p><p>Barely.</p><p>But he breathes.</p><p>
  <em>What’s going on?</em>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>When he gets to school, everyone is looking at him. Whispering, just softly enough that Peter can’t seem to pick up the words. He sees MJ and is about to wave, but she looks at him with narrowed eyes, folding her arms.</p><p>He doesn’t wave.</p><p>Ned is next to their lockers. He’s fidgeting when Peter gets there, and says, “Peter, did you—”</p><p>Ned stops, and Peter’s gut clenches.</p><p>“Did I what?”</p><p>Ned’s eyes widen. “Just, never mind!”</p><p>Peter can hear the incessant buzz of whispering around them, of people <em>looking</em> at him.</p><p>“What’s—”</p><p>Flash slams Peter’s locker door shut just as Peter opens it. He jerks backwards.</p><p>“So, freak, how’d you do it? Come on, we all know you did it.”</p><p>Peter glances around the hallway. Kids are just—watching.</p><p>“I didn’t do anything.”</p><p>“They cut the padlock off her locker. You know what they found?”</p><p>“No, obviously,” Peter says, gritting his teeth.</p><p>Flash smirks, teeth white. “They found you, Parker. Like thirty pictures of your ugly face glued to the inside of it.”</p><p>Peter feels heat flush through his body, immediately followed by a bright flood of cold. What?</p><p>He looks around, again—nobody is saying anything.</p><p>“I didn’t even know her,” Peter says, and his voice cracks.</p><p>Flash laughs and takes off down the hallway. Peter turns around, shaking, and Ned won’t look at him.</p><p>“I didn’t do anything,” Peter pleads. “Ned, come on, you know me. I didn’t even know her! Why would she have pictures of me in her locker? That’s crazy.”</p><p>Ned nods, “Yeah, totally crazy. It’s, uh—just Flash being an asshole. Like usual.”</p><p>Except it isn’t. Everyone in the school keeps looking at Peter, talking in low voices and stopping whenever he turns to face them.</p><p>His palms are sweaty and he feels sick.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Second period, he’s called out of English to sit down across from a grizzled, stern-faced Detective who introduces himself as Stacey. His stomach rolls as he tries to explain, “I didn’t know her. I’ve never even talked to her. I don’t know why she had pictures of me. I wasn’t even at the school that night! I was sleeping, at home. I was <em>sleeping</em>.”</p><p>“Sleeping, huh?” The detective asks, looking at him. “Tell me, Mr. Parker. Is that why you’re sweating?”</p><p>Peter wipes at his forehead with the back of his wrist; sweat comes off of him like water.</p><p>“I don’t know how she died,” he says, his voice weak.</p><p>The detective tells him to go back to class, and watches him leave the makeshift interrogation room on weak legs.</p><p>He doesn’t go back to class; he ducks into the boy’s bathroom instead and fumbles with his phone, pushing buttons with sweat-slick fingers. Mr. Stark. One ring, two, three. No answer.</p><p>Desperate, Peter says, “Please. I don’t know what’s going on. I think—they think I—Mr. Stark, <em>please</em> answer the phone. I need help.”</p><p>He stares at his face in the bathroom mirror. He thinks he can hear someone call his name, but when he turns around suddenly, nobody is there. He turns back to the mirror—there’s a trail of blood dripping down from his nose. “Shit,” he mumbles, and grabs for tissues, trying to contain the mess and stop the flow by holding his head back.</p><p>He starts moving back to class; he sees MJ through a door window. She doesn’t smile.</p><p>His legs barely manage to carry him through the school’s entrance doors before he’s falling over, hitting the grass hard with his knees. He backpedals until his back hits the rough brick of his school building, and he draws his knees up to his chest and breathes.</p><p>Breathes.</p><p>He has to <em>breathe</em>.</p><p>A shadow comes over him. He looks up.</p><p>Oh, thank God. It’s Mr. Stark.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Peter wakes up in his room at Avengers Tower. He reaches up to rub at his eyes, and yawns when F.R.I.D.A.Y. brightens the room. He slips out of the bed, pushing the plush comforter off to the side. His room here has always been super nice—the sort of nice only someone like Mr. Stark could afford. It’s nothing like his room back at Uncle Ben and Aunt May’s old apartment, but then he’s lived in that room since he was six and hasn’t changed much of it over the years.</p><p>He pads out of his room, his pink Hello Kitty pajama pants dragging on the hardwood floors, and heads for the kitchen where he can smell bacon and eggs and coffee—not that he’s allowed to drink coffee—and hear the familiar noise of the Avengers all hanging out together. When he wanders in, Hawkeye throws a sausage through the air; Thor grabs it, devours it, and declares himself the winner of whatever game they’re playing while Tony, standing there against the counter with a mug of coffee in his hand yells, “Quit throwing food in my house, Barton!”</p><p>Peter can’t help but smile at the sight and sound of everyone getting along. He draws out a chair and sits down, grabbing a waffle off the huge stack of them and making sure to drizzle it in syrup and powdered sugar.</p><p>Mr. Stark sits down in the chair next to him, his body close enough that Peter can feel his heat. He thinks his face flushes a little bit red just from the proximity, and he knows it does for sure when Mr. Stark throws an arm over his shoulders and whispers in his ear, “Eat up, kid. You need your energy.”</p><p>Certain parts of him definitely agree with Mr. Stark on that one, and he shovels a bite of waffle into his mouth.</p><p>After breakfast, Peter thinks to ask, “Oh. What about school?”</p><p>Mr. Stark shrugs and says, “Don’t worry about it. I asked you-know-who if it’d be alright to skip the day.”</p><p>Peter grins and says, “Thanks. I—just thanks.” He feels okay, for the first time in days. Relaxed even, like everything is going to be alright. That’s how Mr. Stark always makes him feel—like he’s not quite good enough yet, but—but he will be, with Mr. Stark there to help him.</p><p>He wants to prove himself so badly sometimes, that he can be strong like Mr. Stark. Like Iron Man.</p><p>“Peter!”</p><p>He jerks around. He stares at the kitchen wall for a second, eyebrows furrowing.</p><p>“Kid?”</p><p>“Uh, nothing. It’s okay. I thought—never mind.”</p><p>Mr. Stark smiles down at him, a soft smile that reaches all the way to his eyes. Peter swallows, licking his lips. Mr. Stark’s eyes follow his tongue and then glance back up to Peter’s eyes. Peter shakes, just a little, as he stares back. Tony brings a hand up to cup his cheek, rubbing his thumb gently against Peter’s cheekbone.</p><p>“You’ve got some syrup,” he says, and then slips his thumb down to the corner of Peter’s mouth, pressing it in between his lips until Peter can taste him on his tongue. Mr. Stark takes his thumb back, slipping it into his own mouth as if to suck off the syrup.</p><p>Peter’s heart stutter-stops. His heart is hitting him like a battering ram, <em>thumpthumpthump</em>.</p><p>The moment is broken when Captain America, laughing from the other side of the room, says, “Tony, come on, get a room already.”</p><p>Tony smirks, never taking his eyes off of Peter, and says, “Not a bad idea.”</p><p>Hardly a moment later, Mr. Stark is shoving Peter up against a wall, his fingers digging into the soft meat of Peter’s thigh, hitching his leg up high enough to line their cocks up and thrust against Peter, nearly fucking him into the wall. Peter moans into Mr. Stark’s mouth, desperately clinging back to him.</p><p>Everything is happening so fast, but he doesn’t care. This is everything he’s ever wanted.</p><p>He can feel it building already, with every gasp and moan. Mr. Stark bites his lip and drags his mouth down against his chin, his neck, his throat, sucking needy, desperate bruises into his skin. He holds Peter’s arms against the wall, squeezes as he fucks up with his hips. Peter’s back hits the wall again, and again, and he can’t help but pull at Tony’s hair, his breath hitching every time their cocks touch, the friction so good, more than anything he could have ever imagined.</p><p>Mr. Stark whispers against his throat, the words hot against his skin, “I love you, kid, God, you’re perfect,” and that’s it—that’s everything. Peter arches his back, crying out as he comes. Lights scatter behind his eyes and he’s surrounded by blissful quiet for a second—and only a second—before he’s being flipped around to face the wall.</p><p>He moans when Mr. Stark pulls his pants down, sliding his work-rough fingers over Peter’s ass, squeezing him, spreading him. He hisses in another breath when Tony puts something cold and wet on his thighs, and then tilts his head back and sighs when he feels Mr. Stark press his cock between them, fucking in slow and easy on the first thrust, and then harder, faster, panting into Peter’s ear with every aching shove.</p><p>“Fuck, kid. God, Peter, you’re perfect,” Mr. Stark said, the words falling out of his mouth between every gasping wet kiss he presses against Peter’s shoulders and throat. Peter rocks his hips back, meeting Mr. Stark thrust for thrust, fingers grasping back to hold onto something, anything. Mr. Stark’s hand finds his, strong and sweaty as their fingers interlock.</p><p>Mr. Stark curses, and his thrusts falter, out of rhythm, and Peter feels the wet stickiness of come shooting onto his thighs.</p><p>With shaky legs, he turns around, and Mr. Stark runs a hand up his face, sliding his fingers into Peter’s sweat-damp curls, and leans in to kiss him again, and then again, and again.</p><p>Peter can hear someone yell for him from the other room, somewhere far off.</p><p>He doesn’t care.</p><p>He loves him, and he isn’t a virgin anymore. Everything is perfect, and it’s going to be fine.</p><p>It’s going to be <em>fine</em>.</p><p>“I love you,” he says, he breathes, and Mr. Stark smiles against his mouth.</p><p>And then the bedroom doors burst open and the police fill the room, Detective Stacey at the front, a gun pointed at Peter. Peter’s stomach flips and he scrambles backward, his knees hitting the bed.</p><p>“You killed her,” Detective Stacey says, and his voice holds no question, no uncertainty.</p><p>Peter, his voice strangles, says, “No, <em>no</em>, I didn’t—I didn’t kill anyone—”</p><p>He looks back to Tony, but Tony is shaking his head, disappointment sliding over his face. He sighs and says, “I knew you weren’t ready, kid. How could you do it?”</p><p>Peter feels something break, feels something choking him on the inside of his throat; feels it ripping at his stomach as he resists the urge to throw up. Hardly a whisper, he says, “I—I didn’t mean to—”</p><p>
  <em>She’s dead!</em>
</p><p>A woman screams.</p><p>
  <em>He killed her! Spider-Man killed her!</em>
</p><p>She had blonde hair. She wore a soft green pea-coat and a red skirt.</p><p>She had wide, startled eyes as she fell.</p><p>Gwen.</p><p>
  <em>He snapped her neck!</em>
</p><p>Gwen died, and he’d caught her, and she’d died, and it was his fault.</p><p>“I didn’t mean to,” he gasps, and blood is pouring out of his mouth. He’s choking on it. There’s a string—he desperately grabs for it in his mouth, pulling on the end with fingers slippery with blood that tastes like metal, like copper and iron and <em>blood</em>.</p><p>
  <em>You killed her, Peter.</em>
</p><p><em>You murdered her, Peter.</em> </p><p>
  <em>You snapped her neck!</em>
</p><p>(Blonde hair. Soft green pea-coat. Red skirt. Wide, startled eyes.)</p><p>Gwen, the girl who sat in front of him in freshman English, who bit the end of her pen and made comments under her breath about what the author <em>really</em> meant by telling us the curtains were red.</p><p>(Dead.)</p><p>(She's dead.)</p><p>“Please,” but they’re all staring at him, accusation and betrayal in their eyes, “please. I was trying to save her. I wanted to protect her.”</p><p>(A loud, cackling laugh.)</p><p>His Uncle Ben scoffs. "Protect her? Peter, you don't protect people. You walk away. It's what you do."</p><p>Tony shakes his head, looking away. "Don't be ridiculous. You're just a kid. Go back to school, you aren’t ready for this. You’ll never be ready."</p><p>Mr. Stacey growls, "You killed her. You killed my daughter. Vigilantes are monsters. <em>You're</em> a monster."</p><p>Tony looks at him, his eyes hard.</p><p>“I wanted you to be <em>better</em>.”</p><p>Peter drops to the floor. The string in his hands keeps pulling, dragging something out of him through his throat. Blood puddles around him, soaking him. He can’t breathe. Someone is screaming. He thinks it’s him.</p><p>He tries to cover his ears. His sneakers are coated in blood. It's on his hands. He tries to wipe it off on his suit, but it won’t wipe off.</p><p>Someone is yelling. Screaming.</p><p>It isn’t him.</p><p>There’s a loud cracking noise, like a gunshot.</p><p>Someone grabs him and--was he lying down? Everything hurts. He's covered in blood, but he's in his Spider-Man suit. They're in a basement, it's dirty and covered in mold. There's a rat running in the corner, and spiders crawling on the walls.</p><p>There's a machine, old and rusty and hooked up to a glowing rock and an IV that’s pumping something red and liquid into Peter where it’s attached to his vein. He watches through the haze as the man yanks the IV out of Peter's arm. He tugs Peter up and off the metal slab he'd been lying on.</p><p>That he’d been dying on.</p><p>His stomach churns. He tries to move. He can't make his hands move, or his legs. He can’t even cling to the man that’s holding him up.</p><p>He thinks he’s lost a lot of blood.</p><p>"Uncle Ben?"</p><p><em>No.</em> He closes his eyes. <em>Uncle Ben is dead.</em></p><p>"Mr. Stark?"</p><p>"Try again, kid,” the man answers, his voice rough.</p><p>Right.</p><p>Mr. Stark is dead too.</p><p>Peter sees James Barnes’ face come into view, and despite the twist of his mouth and the roughness of his voice, his hands are gentle when he tugs a long breathing tube out of Peter’s mouth.</p><p>Peter coughs. He spits up blood.</p><p>Someone vaguely familiar is lying on the ground. They're bleeding from a bullet that's blown off half their face. Peter stares at the wall, at the cracks in the cement. He doesn’t protest when Barnes slides a hand under his back and another under his knees to lift him up.</p><p>“You’re gonna be okay, kid,” he says, and Peter doesn’t protest that either.</p><p>He knows he’ll be okay.</p><p>He heals.</p><p>He always heals.</p><p>Barnes carries him out. They pass more dead bodies—or bodies that have been knocked out, at least. Some of them are still breathing.</p><p>Barnes puts him down when they get outside, and Captain America--the new Captain America--is suddenly there too. Both of them are bleeding.</p><p>"Breathe, Peter," Sam says, his voice calm and soothing. He touches Peter's shoulder. “The men who took you, we took care of them. You’re safe. Just breathe.”</p><p>Peter breathes, and then he crumples and he begins to cry.</p>
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